


Coping After the Crash

by robron_til_the_end



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Canon Compliant, Hospitals, Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 10:55:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9604892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robron_til_the_end/pseuds/robron_til_the_end
Summary: I was prompted a while ago to write how Robert coped after the crash in SSW and this is the result. A bit self indulgent, delving into Robert's thoughts.





	

Leaving Aaron alone in the hospital is so difficult. Robert knows that Aaron’s injuries are not life threatening, not any more. He’s only being kept in the hospital for a few more days as a precaution, in case he has any relapses or dangerous blood pressure dips again. But still, Robert hates leaving him, because when he’s away from the hospital, he can see crashed cars. He can see Aaron drowning in front of his eyes, he can see water levels constantly rising and taste the fear. The fear he’s felt only once before in his life, when he was a teenager and his mother was being burnt to death. Losing Aaron probably exceeds that teenage, childish fear actually, because now he’s lived. Robert knows what living without Aaron in his adult life would mean, and it’s a future he could not even contemplate. 

So when he thinks of Aaron dying, drowning, or having fatal complications in hospital, it pulls him apart, makes him scream inside his head. Because Aaron is the other part of him, the part that means Robert is somewhere good, he becomes someone who doesn’t have to hide. Aaron is his grounding, he stops Robert from doing the monumentally stupid things, instead doing the only slightly stupid things. Robert has no idea how he would ever be able to cope without Aaron in his life. Ever since he was a child, Robert built up a wall, hid behind a mask that became more and more perfect. Until it was his nature to hide his true self from everyone he came into contact with. And then Aaron refused to let him get away with it. If he lost the man he loved, the one person he can always be honest with no matter how bad things get, he would never recover from it. Robert knows Aaron doesn’t believe him, can’t even start to realise how much he’s changed Robert’s life for the better.

He thinks about all these things, all that Aaron does for him, and makes his life good while sitting in the hospital car park, behind the wheel of his car. His hands are shaking on his car keys and he knows he shouldn’t be driving. He’s too tired, too worn, too beat down by life right now. So instead of the loop of Aaron’s anguished cries while trapped in a car filling with water, he thinks of Aaron’s smile. Soft, innocent, unguarded and much too rare. He thinks about the new ring on Aaron’s finger and looks down at the matching one on his own hand. He still feels the joy that they both felt in that hospital room, things sorted, when Aaron put the ring on his own hand. Robert feels committed. He does hate to compare Aaron to Chrissie, because they’re two entirely different relationships, based on entirely different things, but in this instance, he can’t help it. He never really felt this level of commitment to Chrissie, even when he married her. Because right from the start, it always felt like he was hanging on, or trying to. Trying to keep his life in one piece, to present a good picture to the outside world. With Aaron it’s messy, and they can be fractured and an absolutely nightmare at times. But he never feels like he’s the only one trying to struggle through it. He doesn’t feel alone when he’s with Aaron, even when he physically is alone. With Chrissie, he felt alone a lot more often than he should have done, probably one reason why he started an affair in the first place.

Thinking that he’ll take it easy, he starts to drive, though he knows it isn’t wise. But then he’s incapable of admitting his own weaknesses or fears, always has been. And he is absolutely terrified of losing Aaron. Right now that feels like the only thing that matters.

* * *

 

Robert makes it home. He drove slowly, trying to keep his full concentration on the road

“How is he?” Chas asks before he’s even fully through the door.

“Whisky,” Robert replies, which makes Chas pale in fear. “No, he’s fine. Relatively, anyway. I just… need a drink.” Chas passes him a bottle, eyes narrowing.

“What’s wrong with you? You should be happy.”

“I’m relieved he’s getting better,” Robert says. “But… we came so close to losing him Chas, and I can’t turn that off just because he had a lucky escape.”

“Robert…” she says softly. They both sit on either side of the kitchen table, Robert looking at his whisky glass that he doesn’t remember pouring.

“I can’t sleep,” Robert admits. “Because I close my eyes and I see him dying.”

“Have you slept since the accident?”

“Not really,” Robert says, knowing he’s close to running on empty, close to collapsing into tears. “It’s different for you, because you weren’t there.”

“I’m still terrified of losing him!” Chas snaps.

“But have you heard Aaron scream in fear because he doesn’t want to die?” Robert says, pushing it even further. He knows he’s picking a fight because he can, but he doesn’t know how to stop it. “I was in that car with him, I know how frightened he was, and even in spite of all that, he told me to leave him. Told me that he loved me, and to get out and save myself.”

The look on Chas’s face says she wasn’t aware of that and Robert feels guilty for trying to hurt her. “I’d have died there with him,” Robert says quietly, not bragging or flaunting it. It’s just a statement, which is the truest thing he feels in his life right now. He could not have left Aaron alone to die, in exchange for his own life. “I didn’t even think about it, but I was not leaving that car without him.”

“Robert, he’s fine,” Chas says quietly. “He’s going to be okay.” Robert doesn’t answer, instead he drains his whisky in one, and goes upstairs.

* * *

 

Robert undresses and gets into bed, though he doubts sleep will come. The bed smells too much like Aaron and yet not enough. Robert pulls Aaron’s pillow to try and breathe him in, but it’s not relaxing, because Aaron’s in hospital and not at home where he should be.  
Their bed is too small for both of them, Robert’s always moaning about it. They both fidget in their sleep, and Robert usually wakes up to cold feet, sticking off the end of the mattress outside the duvet. In their own place, when it eventually happens, they’re getting a bigger bed. But right now, it feels too big, too empty because there’s no Aaron to entwine himself around, something, someone he’s found so soothing to sleep with.

It is a restless night. Robert tosses and turns, and dozes at best, it could hardly be called sleep. He wakes in complete fear several times, heart racing as he reminds himself that Aaron’s safe in hospital. Hopefully getting more sleep than he is.

* * *

 

In the morning, Robert’s head is all over the place, he’s trying to collect clothes for Aaron, grab both his and Aaron’s replacement phones and sort himself out on too little sleep to be thinking clearly.

“You want to stay at Vic’s tonight?” Liv suggests in the kitchen.

“What?” Robert asks.

“I can’t sleep for your screaming,” Liv moans.

“Liv!” Chas shouts at her. “He’s been through a lot, leave him alone.”

“Wasn’t screaming,” Robert says through gritted teeth.

“You bloody were,” Liv grumbles.

“Liv, leave it,” Robert says, not wanting to get into it. He had been having nightmares, unsurprisingly, but he didn’t want to discuss it either.

* * *

 

It takes two more days for Aaron to come home. He’s fragile and weak, but clearly glad to be out of that hospital. Not nearly as glad as Robert is. It’s easier to reassure himself that Aaron’s fine when he’s here under his nose. When he can reach out for his fiancé in the middle of the night when his fears take over. Robert can’t have Aaron to himself straight away. There’s Liv, Chas, Paddy, Cain, loads of people who are happy to see Aaron home and safe and (more or less) in one piece. It isn’t until that evening when Robert can finally have Aaron alone. He helps him up the stairs, Aaron not arguing at the help which shows how bad he really feels.

The door closes behind them, and Aaron looks pale beneath his stubble, increasing Robert’s worries. “How are you?” Aaron asks.

“Don’t worry about me,” Robert says dismissively. He’s not important.

“You’re not sleeping, are you?” Aaron pushes.

“No,” Robert admits. “I’ll be better now you’re home and safe.” He wraps his arms around Aaron carefully, being mindful of his injury and breathes into his neck. It feels so good to have Aaron home that he can’t help the tears from filling his eyes. He feels like a pathetic emotional mess now that he’s got Aaron tightly in his arms again, finally where he belongs.

“It’s okay,” Aaron soothes, sensing Robert’s desperate need to be held. “It’s all right, I’m fine.” Robert can’t let him go, feels himself falling apart and powerless to stop it as Aaron strokes his back gently. Aaron smells good, feels even better. Even when he reluctantly admits “I can’t stand any more.” He lets Aaron go, who half falls into the mattress, groaning at the strain on his injury.

“Sorry,” Robert says. “Do you need more painkillers?”

“Hold me,” Aaron says, and Robert isn’t stupid. He knows it’s for his own benefit more than Aaron’s but he doesn’t argue. He takes Aaron’s familiar body into his own embrace, never wanting to let go.

 


End file.
